The Scientific Committee of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award has approved award nominees short-listed for its twelfth edition, following a series of meetings held in February.

The meetings were headed by Dr. Ali bin Tamim, Secretary-General of the Award, joined by Committee members Dr. Khalil Al Shaikh from Jordan, Dr. Mohammed Bennis from Morocco, Dr. Kadhim Jihad from France/Iraq, Dr. Ali Al Kaabi from UAE, Dr. Dheya’ Al Kaabi from Bahrain, Samer Abu Hawwash from Palestine/Lebanon, Juergen Boos from Germany and Dr. Mohammed Badran from Egypt.

The Committee’s agenda included the assessment of the detailed reports of the judging panels for all long-listed works across the Award’s various categories, including Best Contribution to the Development of Nations, Children’s Literature, including books for adolescents, Young Author, Translation, Literature, Literary and Art Criticism, Arab Culture in Other Languages, Publishing and Cultural Technologies and Cultural Personality of the Year.

It also agreed on the cultural programme details planned for the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair in late April, and went through the progress of work so far, making recommendations to ensure transparency and neutrality ahead of the final stages of the award judging process.

Commenting on the outcomes of the meeting, Dr. Bin Tamim, said, "The judging panels have done a remarkable job to evaluate a total of 1,191 nominations across all categories and to submit their reports against stringent and unbiased criteria to ensure a decision that is truly objective and transparent. This has been followed by meetings of the Scientific Committee during which we comprehensively reviewed the judging panels’ recommendations towards finalising the short-lists which will be announced throughout the coming weeks in preparation of the winners’ announcement in March ahead of the Award’s Presentation Ceremony parallel to the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair."

"We have witnessed a unique collection of literary and scientific works nominated this session, with a geographic variety from across the Arab countries as well as the rest of the world. Such momentum has been due to the positive drive the Award has on the cultural communities of writers, publishers and scholars, and underlines the intellectual value the Award promotes on a regional and a global level towards fuelling creativity in the works of culture, literature and humanities," he added.

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